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Thursday, Mar 05, 2015 Get plenty of Vitamin Zzzzz.

Pleasant DreamsWake up, folks! Actually, go to sleep, but before you do, make sure to watch Sleepless in America. The alarming facts in this documentary would keep us up at night if sleep wasn’t so important to us. It seems that sleep is regarded almost as a luxury in modern society, with some people taking pride in their sleep deprivation, but this attitude is literally killing us. No matter how much you exercise, eat well, hydrate, or meditate, if you’re not getting the proper amount of sleep, you’ll never be truly healthy. This film should be standard viewing for all Americans to show how sleep deprivation dramatically increases your chances of developing diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, and how it puts you and others at risk of being in a potentially fatal car crash.

Robb Wolf, author of the New York Times Best Seller The Paleo Solution – The Original Human Diet, did a post on his blog about the importance of sleep, saying, “Sleep and photoperiod considerations are MORE important than food or exercise. […] That only sounds controversial if you are ignorant to the literature on sleep.” The post includes a TED talk in which his friend Kirk Parsley, a doctor and former Navy SEAL, discusses the consequences of sleep deprivation.

Nothing that you’re staying up to watch or do or read is as important as getting a full night’s sleep. Missing out on that extra hour or two of activity per night is nothing compared to the years of life you may lose by not giving your body the proper amount of rest it needs to cleanse and rejuvenate, not to mention the life that may be cut short by an accident due to sleep deprivation. A popular saying today is: “You can sleep when you’re dead.” If you don’t get enough sleep while you’re alive, that time may come sooner than you think.

Now stop reading this and go to sleep!

 

posted by Kirsten K.


Monday, Aug 29, 2011 This week’s Food for Thought – August 29, 2011


Tuesday, Aug 23, 2011 This week’s Food for Thought – August 23, 2011


Monday, Aug 15, 2011 This week’s Food for Thought – August 15, 2011


Monday, Aug 02, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – August 2, 2010

 

MIRACLES

Sometimes a scientist—often a very great scientist—realizes that miracles pervade everything.  Einstein was such a person.  As he put it, “There are only two ways to live your life:  one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.”

When Wilbur and Orville Wright invented the airplane, the experts considered human flight impossible.  In spite of this, the Wright brothers learned the principles of flight, how to turn and steer their plane, and how to manufacture one.  Although they flew their plane up and down and around over two main highways and a railroad track for five years, the experts took little notice.  Even though commuters could look out the windows of their trains and see them doing so, the newspapers they were reading at that very moment decreed that it was completely impossible for a machine heavier than air to fly.

We are in a similar situation with miracle cures.  While experts assure us that they are impossible, they keep on happening.  If we look out the windows of everyday experience, we can see them for ourselves.

When we are confronted with a spectacular cure that lies outside our current understanding, we need not agonize about whether or not it was really a miracle.  We can be grateful that it happened, and we can strive for greater understanding of what occurred.  If we are lucky, we may find out.  If not, we can be thankful that the universe behaves in benevolent ways.

By measure, a miracle.

—Larry Dossey, M.D., The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things


Monday, Jul 26, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – July 26, 2010

Yogah Chitta Vritti Nirodahah Yoga is the uniting of consciousness in the heart.

The lotus flower has long been a symbol for the unfolding of Spirituality.  It is one of the most elegant illustrations of the meshing of our human and Divine natures.

The lotus seed is planted and grows in muddy waters, below the surface of the lake, far from the light.  Though the light is murky and unclear, the flower blossoms by drawing energy from within.  As the bud passes through the muddy waters, it lifts its face to the sunlight and finally emerges.  Miraculously, not a trace of soil remains on the flower.  It lives in the mud yet is unaffected by it.  This is an example for us to be in the world but not be adversely affected by it.  The lotus flower teaches us that no matter how muddied the waters of our consciousness may become, clarity can always emerge from our spirit if the Divine Light guides us—even if it is only one tiny lotus blossom at a time.

Nischala Joy Devi, The Secret Power of Yoga

“I looked in temples, Churches, and Mosques.  I found the Divine in my heart.” —Rumi


Why is the Lotus the national flower of India?
The lotus always grows in ponds with a layer of moss or mud on top of the water.  This symbolizes that, even when it is surrounded by dirt and impurity, it can still grow proud and beautiful.  A single lotus growing in a pond can make even the moss and mud look beautiful.  In the same way, Indians should strive to rise up and grow proud and beautiful even when they are surrounded by impurity or ill faith.  In this way, we should endeavor to make our surroundings, not just our physical but also our mental, emotional and spiritual surroundings, more beautiful.  —Wikipedia

“As a lotus flower is born in water, grows in water and rises out of water to stand above it unsoiled,
so I, born in the world, raised in the world, having overcome the world, live unsoiled by the world.”
—Buddha

Monday, May 31, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – May 31, 2010

I’ll tell you briefly the fine qualities

Of those on the path of compassion:

Giving, and ethics, patience, and effort,

Concentrating,  wisdom,  compassion and such.

Giving is giving away what you have,

And ethics is doing good to others.

Patience is giving up feelings of anger,

And effort is joy that increases all good.

Concentration’s one-pointed, free of bad thoughts,

And wisdom decides what truth really is.

Compassion’s a kind of high intelligence

Mixed deep with a love for all living kind.

Giving brings wealth, a good world comes from ethics;

Patience brings beauty, eminence comes from effort.

Concentration brings peace, and from wisdom comes freedom;

Compassion achieves everything we all wish for.

A person who takes all seven of these

And perfects them together will reach

That place of inconceivable knowledge,

No less than the world’s protector.

—Nagarjuna, String of Precious Jewels


Monday, May 24, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – May 24, 2010

MASKS

Don’t be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a thousand masks, and none of them are me.  Don’t be fooled, for goodness sake, don’t be fooled.   I give you the impression that I’m secure, that confidence is my name and coolness is my game, and that I need no one.  But don’t believe me.

Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in aloneness, in fear. That’s why I create a mask to hide behind, to shield me from the glance that knows, but such a glance is precisely my salvation.  That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love. It’s the only thing that can liberate me from my own self-built prison walls.

I’m afraid that deep down I’m nothing and that I’m just no good, and that you will reject me.   And so begins the parade of masks. I idly chatter to you. I tell you everything that’s really nothing and nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me.

Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying. I’d really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me. But you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to hold out your hand.   Each time you’re kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, feeble wings, but wings.

With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding, you alone can release me from my shallow world of uncertainty.  It will not be easy for you. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back. But I’m told that love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies my only hope.

Please try to beat down these walls with firm hands, but gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive.  Who am I, you wonder.  I am every man you meet, and also every woman that you meet, and I am you, also.


Monday, May 10, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – May 10, 2010

This glorious Soul we must believe in.
Out of that will come power.
Whatever you think, that you will be.
If you think yourselves weak, weak you will be;
If you think yourselves strong, strong you will be;
If you think yourselves pure, pure you will be.
This teaches us not to think ourselves as weak, but as strong, omnipotent, omniscient.
No matter that I have not expressed it yet, it is in me.
All knowledge is in me, all power, all purity, and all freedom.
Why cannot I express this knowledge?
Because I do not believe in it.
Let me believe in it, and it must and will come out.
This is what the idea of the Impersonal teaches.
Swami Vivekananda

By choosing better-feeling thoughts and by speaking more of what you do want and less of what you do not want, you will gently tune yourself to the vibrational frequency of your Broader Perspective.  To see your world through the eyes of Source is truly the most spectacular view of life, for from that vibrational vantage point, you are in alignment with—and therefore in the process of attracting—only what you would consider to be the very best of your world. —Abraham/Jerry & Esther Hicks, Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth and Happiness



Monday, May 03, 2010 This week’s Food for Thought – May 3, 2010

A baby asked God, “They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow, but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?”

“Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of you.”

The child further inquired, “But tell me, here in heaven I don’t have to do anything but sing and smile to be happy.”

God said, “Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you. And you will feel your angel’s love and be very happy.”

Again the child asked, “And how am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me if I don’t know the language?”

God said, “Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak.”

“And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?”

God said, “Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray.”

“Who will protect me?”

God said, “Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its life.”

“But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore.”

God said, “Your angel will always talk to you about Me and will teach you the way to come back to Me, even though I will always be next to you.”

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from Earth could be heard and the child hurriedly asked, “God, if I am to leave now, please tell me my angel’s name.”

“You will simply call her, ‘Mom.'”

—Unknown


Happy Mother’s Day!


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